True Health Balance

If I ask 10 people the question: “What causes disease?” The answer, most likely would be “Germs” There was a time that I would of answered with the same response. I now disagree with that answer.  To explain this further, we have to understand how the term “Germs” came about.  In the late 1800’s, there was a scientist that discovered germs. His name was Louis Pasteur.  I had heard from several health guru’s that the germ theory was bogus, so I decided to do my own research. Turns out there was another scientist named, Professor Pierre Jaques Antoine Bechamp.  Louis and Pierre were not the best of friends. As the record would show, Pasteur plagiarized much of Bechamp's work. At the time, Pasteur was in high favor of Napoleon III and the High Church. Bechamp was a workaholic and was not interested in fortune or favor.

Bechamp's investigations showed that the cell itself was made up of smaller living entities capable of intelligent behavior and self-reproduction. He referred to these as 'molecular granulations' and gave them the name of microzymas, which he said were the real basic units of life.  Bechamp described how in certain conditions microzymas could develop into bacteria within a cell and could, if the right conditions persisted, become pathological, so that infection could develop in the body without the acquisition of the germ from an outside source. This is called pleomorphism.

This is where it starts to get too technical, so I will spare you. Basically, Bechamp believed that disease starts within the cell and Pasteur believes it starts outside with germs.  There are staunch supporters of both theories on either side. They even say that Pasteur admitted that his theory was wrong on his death bed. I will be honest with you, both side make a great case for their cause.  BUT, and that is a big but, I have to look at this threw my common sense eyes. Pasteur seemed to run into controversy everywhere he went. Ole Louis was out for fame and fortune. Bechamp was quite the nerd and kept to himself. He basically just wanted to help people.

So here is how it went down. With the help of these new fangled microscopes, Pasteur found these germs hanging around dead matter and made the conclusion that these germs must be the cause of disease. You have to understand, before his theory was accepted, the belief was that disease was caused by evil spirits. Needless to say, at the time, they were very ripe to accept any other theory. People were terrified that the evil spirits would take them over. So along comes Louie with a small step up. Now, little creatures called germs invade your body and cause you to be sick. Now people were terrified to catch a germ. Here is the major difference. At least germs had the ability to be destroyed by man threw drugs and procedures. Those evil spirits just could not be caged. Now for the big catch. There were oodles of money to be made from the drugs and procedures that Pasteur convinced Napoleon III that he could create. And create he did. It all comes down to money, doesn’t it?

At this point, you are probably thinking that I do not believe in germs. No so. The germs are real and they will take you over, but they are not the cause. Let me ask you a question? Does this make sense to you? If you saw a pile of trash with a bunch or rats hanging around the trash, would you say, Hmmmm, those rats must have brought that trash here” Of course you wouldn’t! The rats came because the trash was there. The trash was in a nice bag. Now the trash is everywhere because the rats dug it out of the bag. Plus, the rats have left their own deposits, if you know what I mean. Germs are everywhere. We eat and drink them. They live in the soil and water and drift on currents of air. They survive without oxygen or in the absence of sunlight. They form dense colonies on virtually any artificial surface. There have been discoveries of germs found living in volcanoes, 650 degrees F. The presence of normal germs also appears to prime the immune system into a higher state of readiness. Without germs we would not be able to survive. That being said, why do we get sick? What is the cause? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are the cause. You are the one that brings the trash into your body for the rats to feast on. You push your body to the limit and when your body can take any more, you end up getting sick. The first thing you say is. “Those dam germs!” It wasn’t that you went out all night drinking and smoking. It is not that you feed your body with every processed food known to man. It is those dam germs. As far as the flu shot, I challenge you to do a Google search on how the flu vaccination is made. I, personally, do NOT get one. Alright, I have preached enough. I hope you get the point.

Your body goes way beyond tremendous. I HIGHLY recommend you read up on all the body’s defenses that it uses to combat sickness. The bottom line is that our body was made to deal with the germs, but not to the extreme capacity that we put it threw. We fill our body with trash every day. It sits and accumulates over time. The germs are there for a reason. They are there to take care of the waste. When we do come in contact with some bad germs our body is in what I call “Custer’s Last Stand mode” We all know what happened there. He got his butt whooped and so does our body.

Most of us live our lives in a state of sickness just waiting for the next nasty bug to take us down. I got to the point in my live that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I removed all the nasty things that were going in and replaced it with healthy natural food. I have not had a cold in almost 3 years now. I don’t take any medication. Not even Tylenol. All my ailments are gone. How do I feel now you ask? All I can say is, trying to explain the feeling to you would be like trying to explain what a rose smells like to someone that have never even smelled a flower.

I am going to end this post with this thought. Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician in the late 1800’s. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis, the Tuberculosis bacillus and the Vibrio cholerae and for his development of Koch's postulates. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings in 1905. Robert Koch made the discoveries that led Louis Pasteur to describe how small organisms called germs could invade the body and cause disease.

In the final decades of the 19th century, Koch conclusively established that a particular germ could cause a specific disease. He did this by experimentation with anthrax. Using a microscope, Koch examined the blood of cows that had died of anthrax. He observed rod-shaped bacteria and suspected they caused anthrax. When Koch infected mice with blood from anthrax-stricken cows, the mice also developed anthrax. This led Koch to list four criteria to determine that a certain germ causes a particular disease. These criteria are known as Koch’s Postulates and are still used today. Integral to these criteria is Postulate #3, “The disease must be reproduced when a pure culture is inoculated into a healthy, susceptible host.” Even today, with all of the advances in modern science, it would be impossible to prove that a specific germ is responsible for a disease without the use of laboratory animals.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Out of all the questions I get. The one that I receive the most is, “How do you get your protein?” First of all I want to say that I am not a vegetarian. I do eat some meat. Not very often, but I will. My taste for it has all but diminished. Where I live, we have bonfires often and I do like a good sausage over the fire. There is a popular misconception that the only way to get protein is by eating meat. This is not true.

 

What is Protein?

Without getting to technical, protein is one of the basic building blocks of our body. It constitutes about 16% of our total body weight. Our muscle, hair, skin, and connective tissue are mostly made or protein. Proteins are made up of smaller units called amino acids. There are 22 amino acids important to human nutrition. Nine of these are essential amino acids, meaning the body cannot make them. Instead they need to be provided in the diet. The body can produce the other 13. The role of protein in food is not to provide our bodies with proteins directly, but to supply the amino acids from which the body can make its own proteins. When we eat a diet that supplies each essential amino acid in adequate amounts, our body supports protein synthesis. For a more complex discussion on protein, Go Here 

 

How much protein do we need?

 

There is a calculation based off a person’s sex, weight, and calories that are consumed, but we are going to keep this simple. The RDA recommends .36 grams of protein per pound that we weigh. So for a 170 pound man, you would multiply 170 x .36 or about 61 grams of protein a day.

 

Did I get my protein yesterday?

The following is what I ate yesterday.

 

Let’s see how I did. I weigh 180 pounds. So that would be 180 x .36 = 64.8 grams of protein. Well, look at that. I actually went over my recommended limit. Since I do workout and lift weights, my protein need will be slightly higher.

 

 

Good quality protein

I know what you are thinking now. “Sure there is protein in vegetables, but it is a low quality protein”. When I hear someone tell me this, my first question to them is what is the difference? Most have no idea what this means. They just heard it and repeat what they hear. I am guessing the meat producers are feeding this statement. Well, guess what? It is true…. Sort of. It is only part of the story. Eggs, cow's milk, meat, and fish are high quality protein. This means that they have large amounts of all the essential amino acids. Soybeans, quinoa (a grain), and spinach also are considered high quality protein. Other protein sources of non-animal origin usually have all of the essential amino acids, but the amounts of one or two of these amino acids may be low. For example, grains are lower in lysine (an essential amino acid) and legumes are lower in methionine (another essential amino acid) than those protein sources designated as high quality protein.

What about protein combining

The “incomplete protein” myth was inadvertently promoted in the 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappe. In it, the author stated that plant foods do not contain all the essential amino acids, so in order to be a healthy vegetarian, you needed to eat a combination of certain plant foods in order to get all of the essential amino acids. It was called the theory of “protein complementing.”

 

Frances Moore Lappe certainly meant no harm, and her mistake was somewhat understandable. She was not a nutritionist, physiologist, or medical doctor. She was a sociologist trying to end world hunger. She realized that there was a lot of waste in converting vegetable protein into animal protein, and she calculated that if people just ate the plant protein, many more people could be fed. In a later edition of her book (1991), she retracted her statement and basically said that in trying to end one myth—the unsolvable inevitability of world hunger, she created a second one—the myth of the need for “protein complementing.”

In these later editions, she corrects her earlier mistake and clearly states that all plant foods typically consumed as sources of protein contain all the essential amino acids, and that humans are virtually certain of getting enough protein from plant sources if they consume sufficient calories.

 

What happens if we get to little or too much?

Here are some symptoms of protein deficiency:

• Edema – A collection of fluid under the skin, which most commonly affects the legs, feet, and ankles, but can occur anywhere on the body.
• Weight loss
• Thinning or brittle hair, hair loss
• Ridges or deep lines in finger and toe nails
• Skin becomes very light, burns easily in the sun
• Reduced pigmentation in the hair on scalp and body
• Skin rashes, dryness, flakiness
• General weakness and lethargy
• Muscle soreness and weakness, cramps
• Slowness in healing wounds, cuts, scrapes, and bruises
• Bedsores and other skin ulcers
• Difficulty sleeping
• Headache
• Nausea and stomach pain
• Fainting

 

The risks of too little protein are as follows:

• Gallstones
• Arthritis
• Heart problems
• Muscle deterioration
• Organ failure
• Death

Good Sources of Protein

FOOD	AMOUNT	PROTEIN(gm)
Fish, salmon, sockeye, cooked, dry heat	1/2 fillet	42
Tempeh	1 Cup	41
Soybeans, mature cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	28
Couscous, dry	1 Cup	22
Lentils, cooked	1 Cup	18
Wheat flour, whole-grain	1 Cup	16
Peas, split, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	16
Oat bran, raw	1 Cup	16
Black beans, cooked	1 Cup	15
Beans, kidney, red, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	15
Beans, pinto, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	15
Beans, navy, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	14
Lima beans, large, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	14
Chickpeas (garbanzo beans, bengal gram), mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	14
Beans, baked, canned, plain or vegetarian	1 Cup	12
Tofu, firm	4 Ounces	11
Quinoa, cooked	1 Cup	9
Peas, cooked	1/2 Cup	9
Almonds	1/4 cup	8
Soymilk, original and vanilla, unfortified	1 Cup	8
Spinach, frozen, chopped or leaf, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	8
Seeds, sunflower seed kernels, dry roasted, with salt added	1/4 Cup	6
Broccoli, frozen, chopped, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	6
Brussels sprouts, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	6
Quaker Oats	1/2 Cup	5
Turnip greens, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	5
Whole wheat bread	2 Slices	5
Asparagus, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	5
Brown rice, cooked	1 Cup	5
Raisins, seedless	1 Cup	4
Sweet potato	1 Cup	4
Okra, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	4
Kale, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	4
Squash, winter, butternut, frozen, cooked, boiled, without salt	1 Cup	3
Mushrooms, canned, drained solids	1 Cup	3
Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 Cup	3

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When you think about this process of losing weight, do you have a negative thought process, or a Positive one? If your thoughts on doing this are negative, as I suspect they are, your journey will be a roller coaster and it will come to an end very quickly. You need to get into your thoughts and find out what is driving you to lose the weight. Write them on a piece of paper. Pro's on one side negatives on the other. This is a start. Most people eat to compensate for other things. Write them down too. Attack those issues BEFORE you begin the process of losing weight. You have to get your mind in the game, so to speak.

Your goal should be to fill your thought with positive information. You are being bombarded by negative information all day. You open the morning paper to 98% negative stories. You go to work and you can hear everyone complaining about something. Your boss can always point out the negative aspects of your ability to do your job. You come home and turn on the news. Is it possible to get one positive story? All of this is a problem. Your mind it very complex. All this negative information will churn in there. It will eventually get the best of you.

So what can we do? You need to combat this by filling that space between your ears with positive information. First you need to fight the negative information. I do not read the paper, or listen to the news. When people start to complain to me, I just simply tell them I am sorry, but I am afraid my negative barrel is filled and I can’t put anymore in. I read positive books and listen to positive tapes. My buddy Zig Ziglar is a great place to start. Once you get you mind into gear, then you can start to lose weight, but make sure it is a positive experience.Remember this, You are not taking something away from yourself, you are giving yourself a gift. See how that works?

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I read an article in the New York Times that said that in 1970, Americans spent about $6 Billion dollars on fast food. In 2008, it was almost $140 billion. Play the small movie below. It is very disturbing. It shows how fast the obesity rate is climbing every year. 

 

Some of those states jumped 20% in 10 years. The government is so worried about heath care as it stands today. What they should be trying to fix is peoples eating habits. Then again, you can’t fix stupid. That’s not quite right either. We are supposed to have a government run by the people for the people. That is not the way it is. Government is run by big business for big business. The large companies that we have grown to trust are not trust worthy anymore. They are run by greed. It has become a science to mislead the consumer without them knowing the whole truth. The whole marketing business is run on little white lies. Read up on Aspertame someday. I wrote a small blog on Aspertame. The product is in well over 9000 other products. It is poison and causes Cancer, but yet it is still on the market. The way it was pushed threw was more crooked then an Annie Anne’s pretzel. We trust the FDA. We think they are there looking after our well being. THINK AGAIN!!!!

All that being said, the question still stands, why are we getting so fat? I hear people blaming it on McDonalds. They did invent the Super Size Meal. My question on that is. Do big meals cause obesity, or does obesity cause big meals? Personally I think we need to blame Bill Gates. Well, maybe not Bill, but how about technology. Technology had made us extremely lazy. When I was a kid, we had 4 channels on the TV. We had to get up off our rears and change the channels. It did not take long to find there was not a dam thing on. So we went outside to play. Today we want everything handed to us. We don’t want to lift a finger to do anything. If our meals take more than 10 minutes to cook, we don’t want it.

Here is another thought. Today almost 50% of all Americans are taking a prescription drug. As the age go’s up. The percentage go’s up. We are a pill popping nation. The drug companies have some of the best marketers on their team. Why do we need to eat right, when we can just pop a pill and everything will be ok? I want you to think about that for awhile. Is everything alright? What happened to the war on Cancer started by Nixion in the 70’s? We are no further to a cure now that we were back then. The statistics on disease is staggering. We are becoming a sick nation. Scratch that, we are a sick nation. Pills are making us worse.

We need to change, but most of us will not change until there is a life threatening situation. We don’t know what feeling healthy is. We have been used to feeling like crap all our lives and we are used to it. People tell me all the time that I am wasting my time trying to help people’s health. I disagree. I am starting to see people that need a change. They want to feel that wonderful feeling of good heath that I talk about. The people that I have helped all say the same thing. “Why did I take so long to do this?” What I teach is not magic. It is pure common sense.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Aspartame is marketed at Equal, NutraSweet, Benevia. And many other companies are coming out with similar products, now that the patent has expired. It is in well over 9000 products and growing. You have undoubtedly heard that Aspartame is a safe product. I am also sure you have heard quite a bit of bad press on the product. I am hoping that you take warning to this article and remove all products with aspartame in them from your diet.

Aspartame is made of 3 components, 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid and 10% methanol (wood alcohol). In the body, methanol breaks down into formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and formic acid. When the temperature of Aspartame exceeds 86 degrees F, methanol converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which then causes metabolic acidosis. (Formic acid is found in the poison of fire ants). Just a bit of biology, remember your body’s temperature is 98.6.

Aspartame is one of the most acid forming products on the market. I say acid forming because in its natural state, it is slightly alkaline. Toxic buildup in the body is greatly increased when more than 7.8 mg per day of methanol is ingested. One liter of a drink containing Aspartame contains about 56 mg of methanol

If you suffer from the following issues, I would suggest removing all products from your diet that contain this poison.

• Fibromyalgia Syndrome and symptoms of Fibromyalgia
• Multiple Sclerosis symptoms
• Dizziness
• Headaches
• Menstrual problems
• Spasms
• Shooting pains
• Numbness in your legs
• Cramps
• Vertigo
• Tinnitus
• Joint pain
• Depression
• Anxiety attacks
• Slurred speech
• Blurred vision
• Memory loss

For more information view this video form Fox news on the dangers of Aspartame

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A new study from the Harvard boys has just come out. The study was done by the Department of Epidemiology Harvard School of Public Health, and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Channing Laboratory. There has been study after study that has come out toting the bad effects of meat on our bodies. There are issues that stem from cancer to heart disease. This new study was published in the journal Circulation. This time they are blasting processed meats.

The study went through more than 1600 studies and broke it down to 20 that investigated a link between meat and disease risk in more than 1.2 million people. Here is what they found. If you eat processed meats like sausage, bacon or cold cuts, you have a 42% higher risk of heart disease.  It also says you have a 19% higher risk for type 2 diabetes. You might want to think twice about adding these to your diet.

So why are they picking on processed meats? Well, both processed meats and unprocessed meats contain very similar amounts of saturated fats and cholesterol, which can do a number on your arteries to begin with, but processed meats contain considerably higher amounts of preservatives and sodium. I will also point out that the “Smokey flavor” in these meats creates even more havoc. Do a search on this in Google.

I realize that meat is a staple food in our western diet, but so is obesity and heart disease. I am not saying you have to cut meat out all together. I eat some meat every once in a while. What I am saying is to get smart about your diet. Don’t take my word about it. Do your homework. The internet is a powerful tool. The more you read, the better feel you will get for pointing out the bogus information. Common sense tells you that if the article was subsidized by the meat packing industry, you are not getting the whole truth. Learn to read between the lines.

 

Share

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When I tell people that you are not supposed to combine certain types of foods, they just look at me with a look of disbelief. So what exactly does food combining mean? Foods can be broken down into 4 types of foods. Proteins, carbohydrates, Fats and Oils, and fruits. 'Food combining' refers to the combination of foods which are compatible with each other in terms of digestive chemistry.

 

You can’t watch TV nowadays without viewing a commercial on indigestion. The industry spends over 2 billion dollars a year on antacid promotion. Not million, Billion, with a capital B. It used to be that you could take a pill and in a bit of time, your problems would be solved. Now, you take a pill before you know you are going to over indulge.

 

Have you ever wondered why you get indigestion? Are you just eating too much food? Are you eating the wrong foods? Well, not exactly. Somewhere down the line, food was transformed from nutritional based consumption to what it is now, a form of entertainment.  It has become the norm to gorge on all types of foods at one meal.

 

This is not good. It is time to get a bit scientific. Don’t worry, I won’t get too nerdy. Let’s take 2 types of foods, a protein and a carbohydrate. First, before I go on, you might thing that this is over the top and a pain in the rear to do, but let me assure you, this is worth picking up. The very core of good health starts right here. At least as far as nutrition goes. Just remember, change can be hard at first, but it takes no time at all to get used to it. So, back to the protein and carbohydrate conversation. Let’s take a good ole American meal. Steak and potatoes. Your steak is a protein and the potato is a carbohydrate. Different foods require different enzymes to aid the digestion process. Some are acidic and some are alkaline. Your steak is a protein that needs a highly acidic environment to be digested. The potatoes need a more alkaline environment. Let me take you back to science 101. If you mix alkaline with an acid, what happens? They neutralize one another. We won’t get into the 20 part acid to 1 part alkaline discussion here. Do you see the problem? Your stomach becomes a war zone. Your stomach keeps pumping in more acid to break down the proteins and it also is trying to do the same with alkaline to break down the carbohydrates. Nothing gets accomplished. Leave some food on the counter for a day or two and watch what happens. Turn up the heat in your house to 98 degrees and watch what happens. The same thing happens in your body. Undigested proteins putrefy (rot). Undigested fats go rancid and undigested carbohydrates ferment. Filling your body with toxins. This situation often leads to indigestion, bloating, gas, abdominal discomfort. The stomach finally gives up and pushes it to the intestines. This is where most of the nutrient absorption is accomplished. Since the food is not broken down the absorption of nutrients is minimal.

 

Here are some rules of thumb in food combining

• The most important rule is, do not mix starch and proteins at the same meal
• Eat proteins and sugars (fruits) at separate
  meals.
• Eat starchy foods and sugars (fruits) at
  separate meals. Fruits undergo no digestion in the
  stomach and are held up if eaten with foods which
  require digestion in the stomach.
• Drop the desserts. Eaten on top of meals they
  lie heavy on the stomach, requiring no digestion
  there, and ferment. Bacteria turn them into
  alcohols, acetic acids and vinegars.

 

Do you remember when your mother told you to slow down and chew your food? For the most, I am guessing she was not quite sure why, but there was a good reason. The more you chew your food, the less work your stomach has to do. This means that the stomach does not have the time to destroy the nutrients. I also want to add that it also works to your advantage to eat a meal that is void of any stress. Stress creates acid in your stomach. It does not go well with starches.

 

Here is a good chart of what food that you can and can not combine.

 

 

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Can you really fight depression? To answer this question, I believe we need to understand what depression is. The brain is made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons. These neurons send and receive messages from the rest of your body, using brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. These brain chemicals, in varying amounts, are responsible for our emotional state. Depression happens when these chemical messages aren’t delivered correctly between brain cells, disrupting communication. You can think of this as bad cell phone reception. When you are in an area that has weak coverage, your reception is filled with static. Mountains and valleys and distance from a cell tower all interfere with your reception. You end up with static service and dropped calls. You brain works the same way. Anger, sadness, worry, and pain work as inhibitors that do not allow those neurons to transmit. For some, it is a chemical imbalance that will restrain proper brain function. For most, it is a collection of thoughts that we entertain over an over in or mind.

 

Unfortunately, it does not stop there. We turn on the TV and radio and listen to people around us filled with anger and sadness. The strange thing is that we actually want to hear all of this! Have you ever noticed when something destructive or negative comes on TV we are reaching for the remote to turn it up? When we are at work, we open out ears to make sure we hear someone’s misfortune. Why do we do this? It does not seem to make sense that we are so interested in all this negativity. I have a theory on this behavior. We walk through life with a varying amount pain, worry, and anxiety on our shoulders. We feel like if we hear the trials and tribulations of others, it will give us comfort to know that we are not the only ones feeling pain. For a short time, it works. We do get a sense of relieve that someone has it worse than we do. Unfortunately, that feeling go’s away. We have now added extra weight to our shoulders and we feel worse than we did before. Like a drug, we search for that high, that brief moment where we feel good. We try to conceal our problems with other people’s problems. We start to consciously or unconsciously think about what we have heard.

 

I remember years ago I was watching the news. They had a story about a 6 year old little girl that had been abducted a month earlier. They found her badly bruised body in a ditch along the road. They continued to inform us on the details of how the little girl was physically and sexually abused by the abductor. I remember my first thought was a sigh of relieve that it was not any of my children. As time went on, my relieve turned to sadness then to anger. As the day went on, my anger grew as my co-workers and I talked about it. Feelings of hate and despair filled my mind. Even after the conversations were done, it continued to ruin my day. So the question is, how could I have stopped that? The better question to ask is how could I have stopped this horrible tragedy? The answer is, you couldn’t have stopped it! There is nothing you can do about the news that you hear. I have decided to stop listening to the news. People are quick to say things like. “How do you stay informed?”  My answer is simply this… I do just fine. I walk away from negative people. I will listen to people’s problems, but I am aware of my feelings and I do not allow myself to become effected by the negativity

 

My next question to you is… “What do we do to stop being depressed?” Do we just control our thoughts? Of course not, that is impossible. We do not have the ability to control our thoughts. If you don’t believe me, sit in a quiet room, with your eyes open, and try not to think for one minute. You can’t do it. If anything, you will start to think about not thinking. Thought happens as automatically as your heart beating and your lungs breathing. The key is to be aware of your thoughts. They teach this in Yoga. When you are meditating, you try to clear your mind. Thoughts pop in and out of your mind, but you do not allow them to anger you. You just become aware of the thought and gently allow the thought to leave your mind.

 

To be aware of your thoughts, you need to know what to be aware of. This is where reading and listening to people, mentors if you will, help you to understand your thoughts and get a better understanding of why you do what you do. People like Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Norman Vincent Peale, and Tony Robbins, to name a few. You may not agree with all of there ideas, but your job is to pull out the ideas that work for you.

 

My next suggestion is to combat depression with  exercise and good nutrition. I know, you are depressed, exercising it the last thing you want to do. God has given you a temple to work with. It is up to you how you want to take care of this temple. As the saying goes, “Bad stuff in, Bad stuff out. Good stuff in, good stuff out”. Just how exercise reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety isn't fully understood. Some evidence suggests that exercise raises the levels of certain mood-enhancing neurotransmitters in the brain. Exercise may also boost feel-good endorphins, release muscle tension, help you sleep better, and reduce levels of the stress hormone Cortisol. It also increases body temperature, which may have calming effects. All of these changes in your mind and body can improve such symptoms as sadness, anxiety, irritability, stress, fatigue, anger, self-doubt and hopelessness. Exercising builds confidence with the sense of accomplishment. It also works as a distraction to take your mind of off the anxiety. Plus you are doing something positive to manage your depression. A couple of keys to think about before you start. Get a good understanding and awareness of exactly what the barriers you have to not exercising. Do NOT think of exercise as something that is being taken from you. Think of it as something that you are giving yourself. Set reasonable goals. Do not kill yourself. You should be able to carry on a conversation while you work out. You should, however, be working up a sweat. The most important thing to know is that you WILL have obstacles and setbacks. You only fail when you quit!

 

The next thing to do is change your attitude. I know change is hard. Most people spend there life in the blame game. They blame everyone else for the problems they have. I have no money. Blame the government. I have a bad marriage. Blame your spouse. My kids are on drugs. Blame society. True maturity is attained when you take responsibility for your own actions. When I first started changing my attitude, I had to force myself to be happy and positive in the morning. I didn’t believe an ounce of it, but I kept being positive. My only drive at the time was that it had to be better than how I was currently feeling. Somewhere down the line. My attitude started to change. I finally realized the key to changing my attitude. The key is to have a heart of gratitude. Did you catch that? I will say it again. The key is to have a heart of gratitude. When I became grateful for everything I have and lost the desire for the things that I don’t have, my attitude started to change.

 

There are several other great ways to dispel depression like deep breathing, Yoga, and getting the proper amount of sleep, but this is a blog and not a book. I will cover these in later blogs. I have said this before, be a student of life. If depression is your issue, study depression. If you are out of shape and tired, study health. If you are poor, study wealth. Success leaves clues. Pattern yourself around people that have succeeded in your issue. Misery loves company. Hang around miserable people and you will be miserable. One last thought that wraps up this conversation. If you try to fight depression, you will lose. The key to beating depression is to go after the cause and sources of depression.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!